List of variables for substitution in reports?

[David Lee]

On Sat, 26 Aug 2006, Julian Field wrote:

> My sample report files each use all the available variables in each one.
> If you need something else somewhere, let me know and I will see about
> adding it for you.

Julian: The end of a typical report (e.g. "recipient.spam.report.txt")
has a 'signature' such as:

----------- snip ---------------
MailScanner
Email Virus Scanner
%org-long-name%
%web-site%

For all your IT requirements visit: http://www.transtec.co.uk
----------- snip ---------------

Our site likes to keep local changes to a minimum, so we try to take your
reports as they are.

But that final advertisement line isn't appropriate for our site.  (And I
would guess that we probably aren't alone in this.)  Having to chop it out
means a lot of potentially unnecessary maintenance effort as new versions
of MS go in and their potentially changed reports have to be checked and
reconciled.

I can understand that you (as MS author) want to give recognition to one
of your sponsors where reasonably possible.  Fair enough; fine.

So could I suggest that you introduce a new variable, such as %sponsor%,
and use that in your reports.  Your default value of %sponsor% could still
be something about "transtec" (i.e. an untweaked install of MS would
produce the same result as above).

Supplementary: You might also introduce another variable, say %site-msg%,
default value empty, which would allow a site to insert its own tag line
(mission statement etc.) if it so chose.

Hope that helps.  (I'd be happy to try to beta-test this for you.)

-- 

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